"Good night, every one!" he mumbled. "Good night!" No one responded. The two men again faced each other. "I am grateful to you for the assistance you rendered my wife," Wolff said. "We shall scarcely meet again." "Not here, at any rate," was the significant answer. A curt salute, and Arnold turned away. He gave Nora his hand. "Good-bye—and God bless you!" he said. Her lips moved soundlessly. For an instant it seemed almost as though she clung to him. Then her hand fell listlessly to her side, and the next minute he too had gone. Husband and wife did not speak. Nora seated herself at the table and buried her face in her arms. She cried without restraint, not loudly, but with low, monotonous, terrible sobs. Her husband crossed to the door of his room. He stood there a moment, his head bowed, listening. It was as though he were receiving some final message from those sounds of piteous self-abandonment. But he did not look at Nora. He went out, and the soft click of the lock pierced through her grief, so that she started upright. She saw that the door was closed, and that she was alone. *CHAPTER XV* *THE SEA BETWEEN* To reach Wolff’s study it was necessary to pass through the drawing-room. On his way, therefore, Captain von Seleneck encountered Nora, who was seated at her table writing. He bowed, she answered with a slight inclination of the head and he passed on, as a total stranger might have done, into the inner sanctuary. He found Wolff at work on some nearly finished plans. He was standing over them, and with a compass measuring distances with a careful, painstaking exactitude, and his face, as he looked up, though haggard almost beyond belief, was absolutely determined, without trace of weakness. The two men shook hands and Wolff went on working. "It was good of you to come, Kurt," he said. "I know you must be overburdened with duty just now." "One has always time for a comrade, and especially for you," was the answer; "and whether you had sent for me or not, I should have come—like a bird of ill-omen. I felt I owed it to you as your friend, and you would rather have it from me than from another man. It seems, though, you know all about last night?" "Quite enough." "It was a wretched affair," Seleneck said, placing his helmet on the table. "I got it from an eye-witness. Of course, your precious brother-in-law had had too much to drink. That was inevitable, and might have been hushed up. But then came the row with Bauer. It was obvious that Bauer was on the look-out for mischief, and I should like to give Mr. Ingestre the credit for knocking him down as a return for what he said about your wife. Unfortunately, the real subject of dispute was—money." Wolff nodded. "How did you hear of it?" he asked.